As far as alternative asset classes, those seem really interesting. But I'll go with good old-fashioned bonds. They're still dirt cheap and quite effective to offset stocks. And again, my main holding is a total market portfolio on the bond side. It falls into the intermediate duration range, but I've got a small allocation to a short-term total bond market ETF as well.

The best performer in my new portfolio this year has been a fund focused on TIPs. I've been told by professionals that too many people overallocate to these types of bonds. I realize there's always going to be trade-offs for adding different features to plain-vanilla packages. But for someone like me who won't need to touch the money for another 15-20 years, how do you bet against inflation?

The more experience I gain as an investor, the more it seems apparent that the hardest decision usually is to do nothing. But I do reserve the right to make strategic allocation changes as circumstances change and my stomach churns. The tech wreck was hard and I did wind up increasing bond allocations on the margins.

Basically, though, I'm pretty set. That's my strategy in a nutshell. Pretty boring, eh?

It's funny, though. My wife thinks we've got a real cutting-edge portfolio now with all of these brand-spanking-new ETFs. I don't have the heart to tell her they've actually been around for 15 years.

Murray Coleman is managing editor of IndexUniverse.com. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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